There are many good points in this really excellently researched piece - pretty embarrassing for the 'land of the free' I might add. Quite worrisome, in fact.
"The most frustrating part of the discussion around SOPA has been watching politicians and commentators fail to acknowledge the vast resources we already devote to protecting copyright in the United States. Over the past two decades, the United States has established one of the harshest systems of copyright enforcement in the world. Our domestic copyright law has become broader (it covers more topics), deeper (it lasts for a longer time), and more severe (the punishments for infringement have been getting worse). These standards were established through an alphabet soup of legislation: the No Electronic Theft (NET) Act of 1997, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998, and the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO-IP) Act of 2008. And every few years, there’s a call for more..."
His current, and maybe most important topic is the coming convergence of Internet technology and digital communications with energy and environmental issues - the idea of an Internet of Energy. Because of my recent expansion into what I call GreenFutures this concept has really struck a chord with me.
Jeremy Rifkin is president of the Foundation on Economic Trends and the author of seventeen bestselling books on the impact of scientific and technological changes on the economy, the workforce, society, and the environment. One of the most popular social thinkers of our time, Rifkin is the bestselling author of The European Dream, The Hydrogen Economy, The Age of Access, The Biotech Century, and The End of Work.
Here is a video of his recent appearance on the Charlie Rose show:
Jeremy Rifkin, 'The Third Industrial Revolution' "How lateral power is transforming energy, the economy, and the world." Charlie Rose 06.01.12 [1080p] http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/7302
Join Jeremy Rifkin as he describes how the five-pillars of the Third Industrial Revolution will create thousands of businesses and millions of jobs, and usher in a fundamental reordering of human relationships, from hierarchical to lateral power, that will impact the way we conduct business, govern society, educate our children, and engage in civic life.
A few days ago, I did a fairly lengthy and deep skype interview with Toronto-based Marie Germain from Branding 2.0 (see her Twitter channel here), touching on many issues including the future of commerce, selling, marketing and branding, so-called social media (I much prefer the term Social OS), current issues in technology and the Internet (such as SOPA - the deeply disturbing but nevertheless impending U.S. Stop Online Piracy Act), and media / content trends.
There are some quite juicy snippets in this interview, such as:
"In an truly digital society we probably don't need marketing as we know it"
"We are moving from a society, and an economy, based on EGOsystems to a society that is based on ECOsystems (i.e. INTERDEPENDENCE)"
"The old days of commerce were based on handcuffing consumers, now it's all about attraction, engagement and conversations (being a magnet rather than using handcuffs)"
This video uses an interesting format in that it is based on an audio track that was recorded on the phone, and superimposes some related images over it. Interesting. If you just want the audio track, here it is:
From the TribeRadio Youtube post: "World-renown futurist, Gerd Leonhard, in this interview speaks of the very serious challenges businesses and brands face; he offers solutions. On a more sombre note he exposes the ploys of controllers on internet freedom, SOPA to be clear. The Wall Street Journal acknowledges Gerd as one of the leading media futurists in the world. Powerful! Incisive! Gerd is simply delicious to the ears. Keynote Speaker, Founder of The Futures Agency, Advisor to top corporations and governments, author of five books, "The Future of Music", "Music 2.0", "The End of Control", "Friction is Fiction" and "The Future of Content". Gerd's background is in music; however, today he is a top game-changer, inspiring entrepreneurship and guiding us into a prodigious digital world. To reach the Host of Tribe Radio, Marie Germain: at her blog, http://Branding20.wordpress.com or her biz site, http://MarieGermain.com..."
Be sure to check out the other audio / video interviews on here channel as well, including Jeffrey Hayzlett ('Running the Gauntlet' book, former CMO of Kodak).
A very meaty slideshow covering a huge number of key trends (see below... yes, it's a bit of overkill) and a pretty cool video - well worth checking out!
Access Everywhere 9. Electric Fleets 1 0. Leadership Shakeups 4 1. Rooftop Farming 6 3. Tokyo Sky Tree 8 2. Album Evolution 0. Facebook’s IPO 2 1. Lighter Cars 4 2. Roots Revival 6 4. Tom Daley 8 3. All Things Military- 1. Facial Recognition 2 2. Loosecubes 4 3. Scooter Surge 6 5. Toys for Tablets 8 Inspired Fury 3. Lytro 4 4. Screened Dining 6 6. TV Commerce 8 4. Antique Eats 2. Fat Taxes 2 4. Marques Toliver 4 5. Screened Shopping 6 7. “Ultra” 8 5. Anywhere, Any-Way 3. Flipped Classrooms 2 5. Mobile Security 4 6. Senior Cohousing 6 8. Unwrapping the 8 Shopping 4. Floating Yoga 2 Process 6. Motivational Objects 4 7. Silence 6 6. App Overload 5. For-Profit Chains, 2 9. Vdio 8 7. Mushrooms as 4 8. Silicon Valley Siblings 6 7. Apps for an Nonprofit Stores Functional Food 0. Video-grams 9 Aging World 9. Smaller SKUs 6 6. Fuel From Waste 2 8. Mushrooms Go Green 4 1. Virtual Fitting Rooms 9 8. The Attention 0. Smart Clothing 7 7. Garden Camping 2 9. Myanmar 4 2. Voice-Based 9 Economy 1. Smarter Check-ins 7 8. Gen Z 2 0. Nadine Ponce 5 Microblogging 9. Batuka 2. Social Seating 7 9. Gesture Recognition 2 1. Olympics’ New Sport 5 3. Voice Control 9 0. Benefit Corporations1 3. Solar Gets Simpler 7 0. Healthy Vending 3 2. Online Lives, in Print 5 4. Web Chat Everywhere 9 1. Book Club 2.01 Machines 4. Spiking Food Prices 7 3. P-to-P Experiences 5 5. Wii U 9 2. BYOD (Bring Your 1 1. Heirloom Everything 3 5. Split-Personality 7 Own Device) 4. The Personal Retailer 5 Smartphones 6. Women-Only Hotel 9 2. The Hobbit 3 Floors 3. Cloud Security1 5. Play as a Competitive 5 6. Stationery 7 3. Honey 3 Advantage 7. Your Public Story 9 4. Crowdsourced 1 7. Stripped-Down 7 Commutes 4. Hydration Stations 3 6. Pluerry 5 Products/Services 8. YouTube, the New 9 5. Indian E-commerce 3 Boob Tube 5. Crowdsourced 1 7. Public Bookshelves 5 8. Sundance London 7 Learning 6. Inhaling 3 9. Zimbabwe 9 8. Rainwater Harvesting 5 9. Sustainable Palm Oil 7 6. Curbing Food Waste1 7. Internet-Enabled Cars 3 1 00. Zink 9. Remaking “Made in 5 0. Tablets Replace Paper 8 7. Danger Zone Travel1 8. iTV 3 China” 1. Tap-and-Pay Incentives 8 8. Digital-Into-Physical 1 9. LCD Art 3 0. Rolling Stones’ 50th 6 Postcards 2. A Titanic Anniversary
Watch the whole thing and you'll understand what the world - and in particular, America - is up against in 2012. And check out his book "The price of Civilization" - I just got it for my Kindle and will share my public bookmarks soon, here.
If you own a Kindle you can follow my Kindle note-sharing here.
From Youtube: "As he has done in dozens of countries around the world in the midst of economic crises, Sachs turns his unique diagnostic skills to what ails the American economy. He finds that both political parties—and many leading economists—have missed the big picture, offering shortsighted solutions such as stimulus spending or tax cuts to address complex economic problems that require deeper solutions. Sachs argues that we have profoundly underestimated globalization's long-term effects on our country, which create deep and largely unmet challenges with regard to jobs, incomes, poverty, and the environment. America's single biggest economic failure, Sachs argues, is its inability to come to grips with the new global economic realities.
Yet Sachs goes deeper than an economic diagnosis. By taking a broad, holistic approach—looking at domestic politics, geopolitics, social psychology, and the natural environment as well—Sachs reveals the larger fissures underlying our country's current crisis. He shows how Washington has consistently failed to address America's economic needs. He describes a political system that has lost its ethical moorings, in which ever-rising campaign contributions and lobbying outlays overpower the voice of the citizenry. He also looks at the crisis in our culture, in which an overstimulated and consumption-driven populace in a ferocious quest for wealth now suffers shortfalls of social trust, honesty, and compassion. Finally, Sachs offers a plan to turn the crisis around. He argues persuasively that the problem is not America's abiding values, which remain generous and pragmatic, but the ease with which political spin and consumerism run circles around those values. He bids the reader to reclaim the virtues of good citizenship and mindfulness toward the economy and one another. Most important, he bids each of us to accept the price of civilization, so that together we can restore America to its great promise...."
This Quickfire Storytelling session brings together some of the world's leading futurists (see below) to share bold ideas and conflicting predictions of how the world might look in 10 years' time. This video (which we shot ourselves using a Kodak HDCam and Sony bluetooth mic) shows the first 10 minutes i.e. Gerd's introduction, the 5 minute talk and brief discussion with the other speakers and the audience. Twitter buzz is here You can download the 10MB PDF of my presentation (unfortunately, the slides are not really visible in the video), here.
This Quickfire Storytelling session brings together some of the world's leading futurists (see below) to share bold ideas and conflicting predictions of how the world might look in 10 years' time. This video (which we shot ourselves using a Kodak HDCam and Sony bluetooth mic) shows the first 10 minutes i.e. Gerd's introduction, the 5 minute talk and brief discussion with the other speakers and the audience. Twitter buzz is here
You can download the 10MB PDF of my presentation (unfortunately, the slides are not visible in the video), here.
Today is a very big day for me. My new Kindle book "The Future of Content" just went online at Amazon, and is already gaining a lot of traction. You can view a very short video greeting about the book on my GerdTube channel (Youtube:)
Of course I would be very happy if you would consider buying the book for yourself (only $3.90, Kindle-only) but beyond that it would be really great if you could help me spread the word via rating and / or 'liking' the book on the Amazon.com page, tweeting about it or just forwarding this mail to some friends that may be interested.
This review is from: The Future of Content (Kindle Edition)
"I challenge you to expand your brain and read this book. What Gerd Leonhard is always doing is informing the global brain (or the collective brain) in ways that help us all get where we're trying to go. He builds the buildings in front of us.
This collection points toward several compelling answers for content creators. As a writer who is already swimming in the changing currents of "content," I found it intensely informative. Leonhard shores up my courage to continue embracing a digital world without DRM, and ebook prices "for the masses." He makes the all-important concept of curation crystal clear. If you are providing any kind of content in print or on the web, it's relevant. If you want to stay on the front edge of content creation and publishing, it's basic. I'm making this book mandatory reading for my epublishing circles"
ABOUT "THE FUTURE OF CONTENT" Futurist Gerd Leonhard has been writing about the future of content i.e. music, film, TV, books, newspapers, games etc, since 1998. He has published 4 books on this topic, 2 of them on music (The Future of Music, with David Kusek, and Music 2.0). For the past 10 years Leonhard has been deeply involved with many clients in various sectors of the content industry, in something like 17 countries, and it’s been a great experience, he says. “I have learned a lot, I have listened a lot, I have talked even more (most likely:) and I think I have grown to really understand the issues that face the content industries - and the creators, themselves - in the switch from physical to digital media.”
This Kindle book is a highly curated collection of the most important essays and blog posts Leonhard has written on this topic, and even though some of it was written as far back as 2007 - “I believe it still holds water years later. I have tried to only include the pieces that have real teeth. Please note that the original date of each piece is shown here in order to allow for contextual orientation.” Leonhard’s intent to publish this via the amazing Amazon Kindle platform, exclusively, and at a very low price, is to make these ideas and concepts as widely available as possible while still trying to be an example of what digital, paperless distribution can look like, going forward.
Kevin Kelly is a major influence on my work, and this video from Wired's Network conference is one of his best. Dive in and you'll see why. All of his books are worth reading, as well.
I am delighted to be involved with PressPausePlay, a movie about digital creativity, funded and promoted by Ericsson, featuring people such as Hank Shocklee, Seth Godin, ZeFrank, Sean Parker, Larry Lessig and Mike Mesnick. And it's finally out and available! Here is what it's all about:
"The digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent in an unprecedented way, with unlimited opportunities. But does democratized culture mean better art or is true talent instead drowned out? This is the question addressed by PressPausePlay, a documentary film containing interviews with some of the world's most influential creators of the digital era"
From the blog: "we have had so many people ask "Where can we see your film?" and this week we are very happy to say our digital distribution has begun! PressPausePlay is now available online in many countries around the world, with more coming soon. You can now find PressPausePlay on iTunes US, iTunes Canada and iTunes UK. You can also purchase PressPausePlay on Amazon.com, Walmart.com, Vudu.com, CinemaNow.com, Xbox, and Playstation. Or put us on your Netflix cue where we will be coming soon..."
This is a brand-new and very nicely produced video - a big thank-you to Google Australia for making it available so quickly. If you are in the travel business, do make sure to watch this video, and check out the other speakers and their presentations, as well. Enjoy, RT, Google + this :)))
18 minutes can be quite short, I think; I always feel a bit rushed as a consequence. But either way, I would love to get your feedback on what you think about this fast-paced presentation; so please leave your comments below or email me. To make this a bit easier, here is the PDF (18MB) of my slides: TedXWarwick Gerd Leonhard PDF. Provided under the usual creative commons attribution non-commercial license, just like all my other slideshows and videos. Most other TedXWarwick can be found here. You can download my book "Friction is Fiction" here (free and hopefully 'friction-less' PDF), or buy a dead-tree version here.
Absolutely brilliant and fascinating stuff by one of my favorite thinkers (and a great influence on my own work), Kevin Kelly. This is one of his most concise talks and he really covers IT ALL in here so... be sure to spend 25 minutes on this video; it's well worth it.
Some key take-aways: "We used to be people of the book, now we are people of the screen. Now we have TV we read and books we watch. We are in the cloud, indeed, but now the cloud is looking back at us, too, and social reading results in social writing. Access not ownership is where all content is going (yes, you have heard that from me before, too:). Flows not pages. New generatives are the new value..."
Great stuff indeed. To download KK's slides go here (thanks to OReilly for making it all available, too!)